We spoke to Ivan Moreno, CEO at Orbia to discover more about how digitalization is taking shape in the South American agtech industry and what solutions it can provide. Ivan shares with us how Orbia is progressing this space with their credit tool and a solution they have developed in response to Covid-19.

What is your mission or a key challenge/opportunity that you are focused on? What’s driving your innovation focus?

Orbia’s mission is to connect farmers to a wide variety of players and generate new opportunities to the whole agribusiness network in our 3 business units (loyalty, inputs and commodities). We generate value by integrating these 3 capabilities, offering farmers and their partners an all-in-one solution regarding the management of the transactional aspects of their operations. The company is founded on the idea that when we must offer solutions that serve farmers interests and, at the same time, generate benefits for all the parties involved. This is what leads our agenda.

Ivan Moreno, CEO, ORBIA

Is open innovation part of your strategy, how do you work with innovators and what partner profiles are you looking to connect with at the World Agri-Tech South America Summit?

Absolutely. We believe that the constant connection with our customers and partners is the best way to build relevant solutions and many features developed in our marketplace were kicked off by talking to our stakeholders, understanding their needs, and connecting the dots.

One example is the Credit tool that we developed in partnership with SICREDI and ABC (Arab Banking Corporation). This feature is the result of linking our partners’ goals, with the needs farmers have when applying for credit, and the role currently played by the distribution channels.

Why is it important that the World Agri-Tech South America Summit is taking place now for the South American agtech ecosystem?

There couldn’t be a better moment. The digital transformation is already a reality in our industry and we had clear signs that the adoption of new tools was being accelerated, as we can see from the constant increase on the transactions on both loyalty and inputs marketplaces. Another evidence of this acceleration is extremely positive reception that the Desafio Covid-19 had on the market. This is an initiative that we took part in partnership with Agtech Garage, Sicredi and Bayer with the objective to fund and provide agtech services to farmers during the pandemic.

We are part of the agtech ecosystem, so are happy to join projects that bring leaders together and discuss how we can build a more vibrant market, and World Agri-Tech South America Summit offers exactly this opportunity.

Why is your roundtable ‘Online Marketplace Technology: The importance of human connection and partnerships in the digital arena’ an important discussion to be having for South American agriculture?

Sometimes the discussions on digitalization of a market automatically bring a perception that nothing is going to be the same and that the market relations will be 100% based on technology. However, we believe that technology is just the means to build enhanced human connections. The human aspect is, and will continue to be, key to the development of platforms that really matter and make a difference in the world. This specially important to agribusiness industry in our region, considering that most of the business is still offline and it’s difficult for a single player to solve all the issues faced by a farmer, so we want to share this vision with the delegates and build bridges to create a new mindset that the whole Industry can benefit on.

Join Ivan as he hosts the roundtable discussion ‘Online Marketplace Technology: The importance of human connection and partnerships in the digital arena’ on Wednesday July 29 at the upcoming virtual World Agri-Tech South America Summit.

Find out more about Orbia’s mission on their website and on LinkedIn.